


New Bloom

by snowbryneich



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-09
Updated: 2012-06-09
Packaged: 2017-11-07 09:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowbryneich/pseuds/snowbryneich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa blossoms in Highgarden</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Bloom

Sansa appreciated that she had not had to wed Willas Tyrell as soon as she arrived in Highgarden. It was a small reprieve but it was hers and she had learned to appreciate what she had. When she thought on it properly she knew it was because now she was safely ensconced in Highgarden there was no danger of her anything preventing the wedding. The armies of the Reach were between her anyone who might harm her. The Tyrells were too prickly to give her up. 

Prickly. It was a good word - these roses all had thorns and if she did not see it in Willas _yet_ she was sure she would in time. 

In the meantime, she gave him her courtesies, she could hardly do less and he seemed kindly enough. It seemed he would be more interested in his horses, hounds, hawks and books than in her and she no longer had it in her to see that as insult. She could have sewing and stories and perhaps as she was to be a Tyrell she would take an interest in blooms. Perhaps she might persuade a winter rose to take root here – with proper care. 

~~~

After two moons of polite smiles, blank stares and courteous replies, Willas could have cursed his grandmother to the seven hells vehemently, repeatedly and in public view. If he had Loras' temper he probably would have. He had learned to be more circumspect but what was the old woman up to? He had thought her plans for him to have Winterfell had gone awry, years ago. But Sansa Stark had appeared out of nowhere, her dwarf husband gone, her absences in the meantime little explained to anyone, he had only a vague idea that she had been sheltered by the late unlamented Littlefinger. 

He had even received a demand from the new lord of the Eyrie claiming he was betrothed to the girl but when he had asked Sansa about it, she had blinked innocently and said she had heard that Harrold Hardyng was betrothed to some naturally born child with a enormous dowry. At the time Harrold Hardyng had claimed to be betrothed to her – she had still been wed to Tyrion Lannister. He supposed it was for the bestl – it would have been unchivalrous to pack her off to the Eyrie and think himself spared wedding a cypher. 

~~~

Highgarden had been spared the famine that the rest of Westeros had endured in the curiously short winter. It had been a mild southron winter and the Tyrell's smallfolk were not sullen and hungry House Tyrell were well loved in their own lands as they had been in King's Landing when they had reopened the Rose road. 

Sansa saw much of the Tyrell lands after her wedding. Her husband's leg was badly damaged, his scars ugly and his limp pronounced. But though he would never ride in a tourney he could sit a horse though his squires had to help him out of the saddle and his leg dangled uselessly. They rode often as he showed her the gardens and fields of Highgarden. And he took her on pleasure boats along the Mander as Margaery had once said he would. It was pleasant. It might have been more so with Margaery. Sansa had known how to talk to her. 

But she could not work out what her lord husband wanted of her. They had had a bedding on their wedding night and she had given herself to him dutifully but not since. He had not made any attempt to claim Winterfell – not even in name. Whatever game he played Sansa could not fathom it out. 

~~~

Margaery claimed Sansa liked hawking, and riding, and music. Willas privately doubted it, she seemed interested in none of those things though she would take part in whatever activity he suggested without a whisper of complaint. But nor did she show the slightest hint of entheusiasm He wondered if his sister had lost her wits so entirely to be fooled by Sansa's empty smiles. Or if his wife had changed so greatly in the intervening years, without knowing what had happened to her it was hard to be certain. 

He noticed she wore green and gold in many of her outfits – the colours set off her hair and he wondered if she was determined to be a Tyrell. Being a Stark had hardly served her well. He had a bouquet of roses picked and sent to her, as gestures went that seemed promising. 

She had one in her hand when she came to thank him for it – but it was flushed with pink. He frowned. “I sent yellow roses,” he examined it. “A hybrid,” he determined. “I'll have those bushes seen to.”

“I liked it,” she said suddenly and for once he could read her face – it was obvious she wished she had not spoken. Not an auspicious start but one he intended to seize. 

“I'll have them cultivated then,” he assured her at once. 

 

~~~

The pink and gold roses arrived every couple of days and Sansa's chambers always smelled of them. Sometimes on a whimsy she wore one in her hair when she was alone. But she was rarely alone, Highgarden was near as busy as King's Landing and she had been given yet another set of Tyrell cousins to be her companions. They were near her age but they all seemed very young. 

“It's so romantic,” she heard them giggling one day when she was bent over her sewing. 

Sansa supposed it was. Willas, she thought suddenly, would not forget what colour rose he gave a maiden. He had little in common with his youngest brother. For that – amongst other things she could be glad. Especially as Ser Loras was horribly burned now – if she were wed to a burned man she would forever expect him to hold a knife to her throat and demand a song. Hardly a promising prospect. 

But Willas was himself and Sansa made her own efforts. She fussed over his newest litter of purebred puppies and their small nephew. But she was not given a puppy and her prospects for a child of her own seemed slim indeed. 

~~~

 

Garlan's match had been made by their parents, Willas reflected after his brother had taken his wife and small son back to Brightwater. Most great marriages were. Yet things had never been awkward between Garlan and Leonette as they were between Sansa and he. Willas was worldly enough to know what was said about his leg and intelligent enough to ignore it. It did not make him a bad husband – though it had made bedding his wife uncomfortable. He'd not been sure he believed her a maiden on their wedding night but it had cost him nothing (and might have earned him some small measure of affection to act as if she was.) But he'd leant to heavily on her with his weight during the act and struggled to move off her after. He suspected that this had little to do with her reticence – she'd been as bad before they wed. But it did not encourage him to return to her bed. He valued dignity over desire. 

It was only when he caught her off guard that he felt differently. It did not happen often - but when he saw her chasing an escaped puppy, singing a unfamiliar tune under her breath or removing a dethorned rose from her auburn curls and pulling it into snarls as the flower tangled - then she did not seem so masked and the flush of her cheeks hot with embarrassment was more than endearing. That Willas thought, was the real Sansa, and her he wanted desperately. 

~~~

Sansa knew what it was to be watched. She more than knew what it was to be watched by a man who wanted more from her than she was willing to give. She did not sense that with her husband – yet he seemed to catch her in every foolish moment. She remembered Joffrey declaring her stupid and found herself hoping rather desperately that Willas did not think that of her. 

She had planned a surprise for him and it went wrong. He had gotten her winter roses and she had wanted to cross them with the Highgarden roses. It was perhaps not the most subtle hint. She had had to ask a gardener for help but she had tended the budding blooms herself claiming a small walled off garden as her own. The plants had grown well enough – it was the blooms. Sansa had not thought this though, she'd used the yellow roses not the hybrids and the plants she had produced were hideous. Yellow petals edged with blue and appearing a rather virulent green. Worse as always Willas caught her being foolish. “Sansa?” His eyes caught the blooms “What is that?” Her heart sank as she tried to explain. 

~~~

He had been pleased she'd claimed a bit of garden. He'd tried to let it remain private but in the end his curiosity had gotten the better of him. And it had been worth letting it when he had found her gazing dismayed over her newly flowered roses. Green roses. Well almost green. “It was a surprise,” she told him, a tremble in her voice - she seemed genuinely upset. 

“A wonderful surprise,” he said at once examining the strange bloom - “Green roses. Fitting – Garth Greenhands could not have done better. We had best not tell Loras, he will want them all for his cloak.” She laughed then but it was hesitant. He bent to kiss her softly and was relieved when she kissed him back and clung to him tightly. 

Caught by the impulse he drew her down to the soft grass and coaxed her into his lap. She did not shift away when he lifted her skirts and it was not so awkward with her atop him. 

They did not speak until they were done. This time Willas would count the lingering ache in his leg well worth it. He tucked the rose into her hair as she tidied her skirts, her cheeks pink. “An usual match is not a bad one,” he told her “Not if it blooms.”


End file.
